The subject matter disclosed herein generally relates to elevator car door opening systems and, more particularly, to opening elevator car doors when an elevator is not located at a landing.
Elevators may require maintenance to be performed from within an elevator shaft. Accordingly, access must be provided for a technician or other authorized person to gain access to the elevator shaft. Traditional access is provided at each landing of the elevator shaft through a landing door. That is, operation of the landing doors is performed such that the landing doors may be opened when an elevator is not at the particular landing, so that the technician or other authorized person may gain access to the elevator shaft and perform a desired operation. Another form of access to the elevator shaft is by a technician being located on top of an elevator car within the elevator shaft.
Because of safety hazards associated with an elevator shaft, access must be restricted to authorized personnel only. As a result, systems are put in place to prevent and control elevator shaft access, especially for non-authorized persons, in a robust and safe way.
Traditionally, elevator car door systems may be configured with an opening deterrent system or deterrent device that prevents the elevator car doors from opening when not at a landing or unlocking zone and only allows the elevator car doors to be opened at the unlocking zone of a landing. That is, the deterrent system is configured to enable the elevator car doors to open only when a landing door also opens. The space between each landing or unlocking zone is a traveling zone, where a landing door may not be present, and the elevator may move at speed between landing floors. As such, elevator car doors may not be allowed and are prevented from being opened when in the traveling zone. If any portion of an elevator car is outside of the landing or unlocking zone, the elevator car doors are prevented from being opened by the deterrent system.